The Dinner Files

Delicate green spring vegetables – the asparagus, the peas, the fava beans – are plentiful, but our San Francisco spring is not keeping pace. Lots of gray and rain and chilly wind and not as much sunshine and clear days as we’re used to this time of year. It’s hard to get excited about simply steamed asparagus with aïoli when I’m chilled to the bone.

A big warm bowl of creamy risotto, though? That I can tuck into with glee.

Spring risotto

Go ahead and play around with the proportions of veggies here – nothing’s set in stone. Add some chopped fennel in with the green garlic, use spring onions instead of green garlic, add mint or dill or chervil at the end.You will find plenty of risotto recipes than demand that you stir the rice constantly. This is not one of them.

1 to 2 pounds fava beans

1/2 pound sweet peas/garden peas/English peas

1/2 bunch asparagus

2 green garlics

5 cups broth (I use homemade chicken stock – if you used commercial broth dilute 4 cups of it with 1 cup of water)

2 Tablespoons butter

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1 cup aborio rice

About 3/4 cup freshly shredded not-super-aged Pecorino cheese

First things first – and experience spring cooks know what this is going to be – you need to double shell the fava beans (I even have this step-by-step guide on how to do it!). I’m sorry. It really is a complete pain if you’re not in the mood to slowly but surely work your way through those beans. Grab the phone, put on the radio, have a chat, or just take a moment and have a little day dream while your hands and eyes are busy.

Set the shelled, blanched, and shelled favas aside.

Shell the peas – doesn’t that seem like a breeze after the favas? – and set them aside with the favas.

Snap the asparagus spears where they break naturally and discard the ends. Cut the asparagus into relatively thin, angled slices, leaving the 1-inch to 2-inch tips intact. Set aside.

Cut off the root ends off the green garlics. Cut the white and light green part of the stalks in half lengthwise – the darker green top will hold the whole things together. Chop the white and light green parts. Reserve the dark green tops for making stock, if you’re so inclined.

Put the broth in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Keep it at a very low simmer.

Meanwhile, heat another medium-ish saucepan over medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the butter and the olive oil. When the butter is melted and stops foaming, add the chopped green garlic and the salt. Cook, stirring, until the green garlic is wilted, about 2 minutes.

Add the rice and stir to completely coat it with the butter and oil. Cook, stirring until the opaque rice grains turn a bit translucent around the edges.

Add about a cup of the warm broth to the rice and cook, stirring as you like. Adjust teh heat so that when you’re not stirring the mixture simmers a bit but doesn’t boil or get too excited. When most of the broth is absorbed – when you can see the bottom of the pot for a few seconds when you stir because the mixture is thicker than the broth – add another 1/2 cup broth. Continue cooking, with some stirring, and adding 1/2 cup of broth at a time until the rice is almost tender to the bite but still has a kernel of uncooked-ness in the center – it took mine a bit over 15 minutes to get there.

Add the asparagus and more broth and continue cooking and stirring and adding broth as needed until the asparagus is almost done and the rice is al dente – tender but with structure to each grain. Add the peas and fava beans.

Continue cooking, adding a bit more broth and stirring, until the peas and beans are warm, just a minute or two. Stir in the cheese and remaining tablespoon of butter and taste – add more salt if you want. We found more cheese on top and some freshly ground black pepper was tasty indeed. As mentioned above, a bit of chopped spring herbs would be lovely too.

We had ours with a boiled egg on the side – we have all these picture-perfect pastured eggs in the house and they are difficult to resist. I meant to soft boil them – start in cold water, bring to a boil, cover, remove from heat, let sit exactly three minutes, remove from hot water, and peel. But the risotto timing with the rice and vegetables and whatnot had the bulk of my attention and the eggs sat around on the counter after I took them from their hot water bath and kept cooking and they weren’t soft-boiled at all. They were, however, delicious and super-spring-y with the risotto.

We were a busy, rushed family last night. The farm box* was filled with the same-old same-old which is what happens – even in the Golden State – this time of year. The same-old same-old included juicy oranges, bright chard, and tiny freshly-dug Yukon Gold potatoes, so I’ll limit my complaints. The leek and cauliflower were put to use to make a lovely smooth soup. And the one sign of spring in the box – green garlic – was chopped, sautéed in butter and spooned atop the servings of soup. It was a lovely bridge: from winter to spring, from rainy day to cozy night.

* “Farm box” is what Ernest calls our CSA (community supported agriculture) box of fruits and vegetables we get every week from Terra Firma Farms. It is an apt description and, quite frankly, more direct than “CSA share.”

We are all a bit stuffed up and achy around my house. The boys have been sick for awhile, but it just hit me yesterday. I may have come down last, but it looks like I’m coming down hardest. So when dinner time rolled around I headed down to the basement and my beloved deep freezer. After rooting around for a few minutes I pulled out a container of green garlic pesto I made the last time it was in season. We tossed it with some angel hair pasta, made a green salad (with classic vinaigrette, which can be made in about the time it takes to sort through bottled dressings in a fridge, pull one out, pour it, put the cap back on, and return the bottle to the fridge), and called it dinner. Not too shabby.

I was in a bit of a hurry because I was headed out — cold and all — to help a friend who has a prolific meyer lemon tree of her own turn some of her backyard fruit into marmalade.

East Coasters, Midwesterners, even Pacific Northwesterners might want to turn away. I went to pick up our farm box yesterday and for the second week in a row there was a bunch of green garlic in it. Yummy, delicate, fragrant, aromatic green garlic. Since my dashing husband was out for the evening, I let Ernest choose which vegetable we would cook up to go with the noodles I knew he would want. He chose the collard greens. Yep. The collard greens. So, because he’s had a bit of a hard time of it lately what with us demanding that he actually pay attention in class and listen to his teacher (we are big fat bummers, no doubt), I added prosciutto to the greens and, because I’ve had a bit of a hard time of it lately what with having to demand that my five-year-old boy sit still for 6 hours a day, I added chopped green garlic. I passed on the noodles and just had a big old plate of the yummy yummy greens. See the recipe, if needed.